When I was a headteacher, I never ceased to be amazed at how frequently, as I drove to work, BBC Radio 4’s Today programme highlighted something that should be part of the school curriculum.

In a recent article in the Financial Times, Stephen Bush demonstrated that the habit still exists: he highlighted the fact that there always seems to be a school-shaped solution to all our social problems.

It was in response to a story about a pupil identifying as a cat, but it could equally have been about teenage pregnancy, drugs, financial knowledge, gender, misogyny or addressing a whole range of so-called “woke” issues identified by the media.

Unrealistic expectations

However, is the ultimate example of this the proposition that there is a school-based solution to social mobility?

Of course, schools make a difference and there is considerable evidence that high-quality teaching differentially benefits less advantaged pupils, as does a focus on cultural capital.

But is the widely held belief correct that schools are more or less solely responsible for eliminating the effects of poverty and enabling much greater social mobility?

We have had the additional funding of the pupil premium for 12 years and schools have put huge efforts into trying to close the attainment gap, but there has only been a slight narrowing and, sadly, even these small gains may have been lost due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Attention is frequently drawn to schools that have had success in enabling less advantaged pupils to achieve more highly, arguing that if they can do it, so can everyone else.

But we have an assessment system for 16-year-olds that “requires” 30 per cent or so to “fail” with grades below 4.

It is, therefore, no great surprise that pupils from less advantaged backgrounds continue to be heavily over-represented in this group.

With our current system, if some pupils achieve higher grades, others will replace them on the lower grades. In effect, it could be, and has been, argued that if we want upward social mobility then there will have to be concomitant downward mobility.

Problems that education cannot solve

The truth is: schools cannot, on their own, overcome the disadvantages that arise from poverty. But those who express this view are often dismissed as defeatist: “Schools should have high aspirations for all their pupils.”

They do. But as currently measured, every pupil cannot pass and it is not defeatist to say there will always be an attainment gap. It is reality. (This is not to deny the significant progress that schools have made and the impact of organisations like the Education Endowment Foundation.)

Poverty and class are the issues.

The disadvantages of growing up in poor housing with limited access to books, possibly poor health and diet, and little or no exposure to other learning experiences mean that less advantaged children inevitably start behind their more fortunate peers.

We are a much more unequal society than most of our neighbours, with intergenerational income differences persisting.

It is convenient for politicians and others to blame teachers and place the responsibility on them: “If only teachers did a better job, the problem would be solved.”

This feature of our discourse not only prevents wider solutions from being explored but this belief in a school-shaped solution has also led to a rather futile search for pedagogical and curricular silver bullets that will somehow magically create greater equity in learning and thereby social mobility.

Schools need support from wider society

There is great danger in proscribing what is, at any particular time, seen to be the pedagogy that every teacher should follow.

Ideas change - the best teaching has always encouraged engagement with a diverse range of research (appropriate to phase and subject) that enables teachers to make informed choices when planning and teaching.

Schools will continue to do everything they can to enable young people to be successful, irrespective of background, but, at best, all they can do is mitigate to a limited extent the impact of poverty.

We need to stop pretending that the attainment gap can be closed by schools and not continue with what is, in effect, a confidence trick that suits our politicians and the media, that there is a school-shaped solution to our lack of social mobility.

Alasdair Macdonald is a former headteacher of Morpeth School and chair of the New Visions for Education Group